Choosing Solar Power for Your Home

Solar power is nothing new.  NASA has been using it for decades to power satellites and even aircraft.  NASA's research and development has contributed to our ability to use solar power to produce electricity for more down-to-earth projects.   During the late 1970's, then President Jimmy Carter, in a forward-looking move, even installed some on the White House.  Where would our country be if we had continued along those lines, investing in renewable energy systems and slowly becoming less dependent on foreign oil and dirty sources of energy?!

The Personal Economics of Home Solar Power

by Ellen Coleman

Off the Grid and Out of Debt

Solar power allowed my family of four to live in comfort on 20 acres in northern New Mexico far from utility lines. Because of solar power, we were able to buy 20 acres of affordable, undeveloped land, reducing the overall cost of our homestead by tens of thousands of dollars.  We built a super-insulated, energy efficient Earthship and added on, out of pocket, as we were able to.

For power, we located used solar panels being removed from a large museum that had installed them during the Jimmy Carter administration.  We installed those panels on racks and solar trackers, and routed the energy through an inverter and into our house.  Fifteen years later, those used solar panels produced close to what they had originally been rated for.  They're producing still!

Because solar panels have no moving parts, and because the silicon crystals continue indefinitely to perform their job, the panels can be warrantied for 20 - 25 years, and effectively produce much longer than that. Solar cells degrade only slightly under the sun's rays.   In choosing what kind of solar panels to use, remember that crystalline solar panels have a much slower degradation factor than thin film, which is warrantied for only 10 - 15 years.

Our off-grid solar electric system stored energy produced from the sun in batteries.  We had a large enough battery bank to be able to support lights, television, stereo, fans, water pumps, computers, washing machine, and electrical appliances for us and our guests.  We depended on propane for 'frig and stove.  Since appliances that make heat use such enormous amounts of electricity, we used a good old fashioned clothes line and heat from inside our cozy passive solar home to dry clothes.  Did we feel like we were doing without?  Absolutely not.  We were the richest family in the world, breathing clean air, growing organic foods inside and outside the house, having time to spend with our growing children!

Our kids knew where their electricity came from and had the experiencial knowledge of how much electricity a hair dryer uses (lots!) and what happens when you consume more electricity than you make.  We did have to balance our loads and time our projects according to the amount of sunshine we had, but we did not have to pay an electric bill.  And we didn't have to pay a mortgage payment every month.  When our family needed a change of location, we had a house that was worth enough to finance the building of our new home in California. 

Does solar power increase the value of a house?

It certainly did increase the value of our solar home.  When we were ready to move from New Mexico, we found a niche market of home buyers who appreciated the independence of living off-grid and who were willing to pay for it.  Ours was a homestead that was as close to self sufficient as you can be at 7,600 ft in a dry climate.  Because we put in all the labor of building and we used lots of recycled and free materials, it is hard to say what the exact return on investment was.  It did finance our next building project, a grid-intertied home in northern California.

Grid-Intertied in Northern California

We learned a lot about self-sufficiency during our off-grid New Mexico years.  One thing we learned was that living 30 miles from schools and movie theatres and grocery stores is not self-sufficient.  The cost and time of driving puts a drain on your lifestyle and pocketbook.

Here in California we are grid-intertied on a three acre lot just a good hike away from town.  With grid-intertie, we're not limited to what a battery bank can hold.  Yes, when the California utility system has a brown-out, our gridtie system goes out with it.  But we haven't given up energy independence entirely.  A small backup battery system will allow us to pump water and run essential loads when the grid goes down.

Closer to town but with enough room for a fabulous garden, our gas use is way down.  We're in a climate with a longer growing season and plenty of water.   If push comes to shove, we can get around in our electric plug-in truck.  We added a rack of solar panels to it so that the little truck can charge itself while sitting in the sun.  Our neighbors have chickens and sell us eggs.  We're able to grow enough squash, onions, and potatoes to last through the winter.  No, we don't produce all the food we eat, but we could if we needed to.  Last year we had enough strawberries and raspberries to pick all summer and store more for smoothies in the winter.  Life is good.

We sized our gridtied solar electric system so that we'd have a zero electricity bill.  That's one bill that we won't have to worry about when we retire.  The first year we lived in the house, before we added solar panels, we used about 450 killowatt hours a month.  Add three zeros and you see how many watts of electricity we needed:  450,000 watts.  We sized our system to produce less than that because we knew that during the day, while we were at work, we would produce more electricity than we need.  Our inverter is smart enough to send the excess back through the grid.  The meter turns backwards, subtracting from what we would owe!  At night and on cloudy days, we pull what we need from the electric utility lines.  We know we're using more than our system can produce if we get a bill from the electric company.

We added a larger refrigerator to handle the garden produce and noticed we needed to add a few more solar panels to cover the extra electricity usage.  Our inverter was big enough to handle the panels, so we didn't have to buy a bigger inverter.  Grown kids moved back in while they remodeled a house next door, and we exceeded our energy budget again.  Enphase Energy micro-inverters will allow us to add one panel and one inverter at a time if that's what we need to do.   There's not a lot we can control about our country's economic depression.  But we can, now, control our home's energy consumption and live within our electrical means.

We feel so fortunate to live where we want to live, to have our grown children nearby, to feel some security in house and home.  It has not always been this way and we've worked hard to get here.  We have made choices, based on hard experiences, that have led towards greater freedom from the up's and down's of the economy.  Believe me, we've been on the other side of the fence—trapped by mortage payments, living in a house worth less than we owed on it.  But we had good advice and we've worked hard to do things we didn't know how to do when we started.

"Waaaaaaaaaa!  It's too expensive for me."

We hear this a lot.  We also hear, "My teenagers would never go along with this.  They need their own T.V's, etc."  "I don't want to make any changes, just want to add a gridtied solar electric system, how much will it cost?  What?!  That'll never pay for itself!"

Well, everything is a process.  You have to start where you are and make choices that lead where you want to be.  We started out broke at 37 years old, living in a house that wasn't worth what we owed on it, with a new baby and an 8 year old budding ballerina.  Where are you?

Begin by using whatever power you use more efficiently.  Conserve energy by using fluorescent lighting and efficient appliances. Running high power appliances—electric bar heaters, electric hot water systems and air conditioners—is really not efficient, so look for alternatives.  Invest in energy efficient heaters, solar hot water and design features such as strategically placed vents or insulation to keep heat out of the house in the first place.  Make these changes first and then investigate solar electricity.  You'll find you've already reduced the cost of powering your home.

Educate your family and yourself.  Why are you making changes?  What are the long term and short term benefits?  What does energy efficiency have to do with how hard you have to work and how much time you have for recreational activity?

Living above your means is a trap.  Do you pay high utility prices for overusing appliances that do work that can easily be done by hand? And are you also paying monthly fitness center membership fees to get the exercise you need?  Are you trapped in a lifestyle that's stressful and unhealthy but you cannot move because you house is barely worth what you owe on it?  Does it take so much of your time to pay for what you have that you don't have time to enjoy it?

Best advice?  Save money to buy what you need.  Get out of debt and stay out of debt if at all possible.  Live within your means.  Make dirt wherever you live, and plant. Plant what you love.  Plant what you can afford.  Find a place where the sun shines 5 - 6 hours a day and go solar.  ....And teach your children well.......